On Four Legs
by gabriel blessing
Summary: At Camp Wannaweep, their was more horrors than bugs, poison ivy, Gill, or even monkeys. There one who travels on four legs. There was Yee Naaldlooshi. There was the Skinwalker. And now it's awake. And man is it pissed off.
1. Chapter 1

On Four Legs.

Yee Naaldlooshii

_Yo folks. A little something that's been on my mind. Maybe a one shot, maybe to be continued. If anyone's wondering I'm 2/3s the way through Ruinous 4, and still chipping away at Door of Air. This was something I wrote to get my creative juices flowing. Blame the Dresden Files, or Blame alcohol. Let me know if you want me to keep it up._

Shit. That's the only thing I can think when I find myself suddenly presented with the spectacle of the entire cheer team, and Mr. Barkin pinned to various surfaces and splayed out around me as a vicious mutated jerk from my pre-teen years started to advance on me. I mean, so far we'd been stranded out in the middle of nowhere, the only other source of non-estrogen was a crazy ex-military teacher with some kind of vendetta against me for daring to look at him wrong in the ninth grade, and I've been too bat shit scared to do anything but ramble the entire evening. Luckily, everyone just took that as another sign of my natural weirdness. That's good. If they realized that ever since I've discovered that we were returning to this thrice damned forsaken shithole that should be nuked so the world would no long have to bear the horror of its presence on it that I reason I've been rambling isn't that I'm trying to warn them about the horrors of this place and the real reason for my carrying on is that it's the only thing keeping me from shitting my pants in front of them, well, then things could get ugly.

"Now, Gill," I say slowly, backing away as I spoke. Oh fuck. Why did it have to be here? Why couldn't he have confronted me at the lake, or the fire side, or after the bus broke down, or in a freaking mine field filled with unexploded ordnance? Anything would be better than here. We're no more than a dozen yards from the cairn, and Gill is looking so freaking spit happy that I have no doubt if he starts unloading he's gonna unload big time. "Can't we talk about this? In a calm, peaceful manner, somewhere else preferably?" I try to angle myself away from the cairn. Dear dead gods, please, let me get away from the cairn. Gill sees my shifting, and seems to think that what's freaking me out is him, and cuts me off with a leer. Jezuz fuck, he's deliberately keeping me between him and the cairn. He just sees the big pile of stones as a useful land mark to back me into.

"I don't think so squeeb," he leered at me. Wow. Squeeb. That is so insulting. I don't think I'll ever recover. "You're gonna pay for what you did to me!"

"Did to you? You liked the lake and I like arts and crafts. We both switched, no questions asked. Blame the freaking science camp," I tell him, and make another effort to get away from the very scary thing that's getting closer and closer. No, not Gill, the cairn. Oh sweet dead gods, don't make me get any closer to that wretched monument. Once more Gill seems to think that he's top shit here, and gets in the way of my very righteous attempt to run away from the real threat.

"No more talking, squeeb! Time for you to suffer like I did!" And with that last dimwitted, pre adolescent jibe, he takes a deep breath, inflating his gullet and causing his little fin things to spread out.

"No! Don't you idiot! You'll wake it up!" I dodge desperately, away from the cairn, hoping that at least he'll follow me with his aim. Behind Gill, Kim and the rest of the cheer squad cry out, and Mr. Barkin yells something about webbing between his toes. I get a tree between me and the rampaging mutant shooting pond scum at me, have a brief moment to reflect on just how stupid this situation sounds when I put it like that, and then it's gatling mucus time for Gill apparently. As I crouch shielding my head, the only thing I have eyes on, the only thing that matters to me, is keeping an eye on the cairn. Please, please, PLEASE! Dear dead gods, don't let it get disturbed! Anything you ask of me, I'll give it, just don't let it…

A stray shot of muck. Gill is apparently so crappy an aim that he feels the only way he can hit a target is if he hits everything in a sixty degree arc. Right there, at fifty seven degrees, is the cairn. It takes a hit. I can only watch, eyes wide, my breath shortening in panic, as a stone dead center in the pile takes a direct hit. My eyes widen further, and my whole life is consumed in watching the stone shake. Loosen. Please don't, please don't, I beg inside my mind, my mouth already open and screaming the same. The stone rattles, and now the pathetic threat of pond scum doesn't even register to me. I crawl to get a better view, so I can know if I have even a chance of making it out of the night with my life and sanity. On all fours, frozen in dread and anticipation, I watch the stone as it….

It stays put. It doesn't fall.

I sag in relief. It didn't fall. It didn't fall! The cairn remains undamaged!

It's a half dozen heartbeats as I kneel there, too thankful that I have a good chance to see the next sunrise with my life and sanity intact, that I don't even notice as Gill closes with my prone form. The thing that finally snaps me back to reality is, surprisingly, Bonnie.

"Great. And the loser screws up again," she snorted. It was enough to bring me back to the present. Kim is in the background, shouting my name in worry, and Tara adds her voice to it. Mr. Barkin is there too, saying something like, "get it together Stoppable!"

The only voice I really can make out though, is right above me. "Well, squeeb. Time for you to get what you deserve!" Gill was right above me. He seemed to think that my cowering was because of him. That my fear was because of the pathetic attempts of an unimaginative fluke freak of nature like him. It should of made me laugh. Seriously, Gill? You really think you rate cowering?

But instead, it just pissed the ever living fuck out of me. This useless, selfish waste of space who had almost awoken something truly wretched and terrifying thought I was on my knees for him? Thought he deserved groveling?

I think it's time he realized just where it was he stands in this equation.

The thing about forests? Lots of dead wood, sticks, logs, that kind of thing laying around. I silence the desperate shouts for help and encouragements from the cheer squad (hey wait they were cheering me, sweet!) by demonstrating just how useful all those aforementioned forest scenery elements were as weapons of opportunity.

I don't think Gill was expecting me to swing about with a four inch thick piece of semi-rotten wood when I wheeled on him like a cornered animal. He certainly didn't expect the rage on my face when I struck it across his face with all the force I could muster and without an ounce of hesitation. The crack of wood on flesh echoed through the woods, stunning the witnesses into silence. The fact that my snarl could be seen even from where the aforementioned witnesses were strung up must have unsettled them even more. That I didn't pause to bring the half broken piece of wood back again for a backhand against the undamaged side of Gills face seemed to be the point where they registered that yes, I was truly fucking pissed. When the second strike against Gill's face broke the stump in my hands in half, and I didn't stop hitting him with it, that's when they finally realized that, hey, maybe something is going on here that they weren't quite aware of. When I started screaming at the already pulping face of the wannabe super villain that suddenly had a realization of just how unprepared he was for the big leagues, then the suddenly uncomfortable peanut gallery began to get an idea of just how pissed I was.

"You dumb shit fucking waste of air! Do you have any idea what you almost did! Do you have any fucking clue just how stupid you fucking are!" I think my excessive use of vulgarity might have almost caused poor Mr. B to have an episode right there. It certainly shut up the rest of the cheer squad. Even Kim was gaping at me wide mouthed. I don't think she's ever heard me swear before.

I suspended my effort to beat the dumb out of the green whack job in front of me, and tossed aside the now shattered log, before taking several deep breaths. Now, now, Ronnie. Not in front of the innocent bystanders. With a last breath I turn around and face my wide eyed audience with a relaxing smile.

"Well," I said brightly. "Now that that's…over….with…"I trailed off, as I heard something that seriously harshed my building mellow. With wide eyes, I turned around to confirm just what it was that I had heard a second ago.

The stone. The stone on the cairn had dislodged. The clink-clink of it falling down the rest of the pile was the noise that had interrupted my carefully calculated attempt to disarm the situation. But that meant…

"Oh." I said it loudly and plainly, and I my proclamation was met with startled wide eyes from my observers. "Oh fuck." I elaborated for them, so they could really get a clue of just how bad this was going to get.

Without another word, I reached down and pulled up my pants leg. Gasps echoed through the suddenly quite woods as I pull a thirteen inch bowie knife from my calf. Without another word I sprinted towards Mr. Barkin. His eyes widened, and I can't help but hope that when he saw me coming he thought about all the extra homework and spotty detention he gave me over the years.

"Stoppable what are you…" was as much as he managed to get out before I was on him. He closed his eyes and braced himself for what he no doubt expected to be a pointed demonstration of why he was my least favorite teacher. When nothing pointed happened to him, he cracked an eye and found me desperately cutting the filth that held him pinned against the tree away. "Stoppable?"

"Mr. B. Just stand very still so I can get you out of here," I told him. "As soon as you're out, you get the knife and start working on the next one. We need to move fast," my voice is quick and on the edge of panic. "We have incoming hostiles, and we need to evac to the safe zone, asap, got it Mr. B?"

I have no idea where the military lingo came from. One too many war movies I suspect. Wherever it came from, it seemed to calm Barkin down. He kept an eye on me, but when he spoke he had managed to regain a whole lot of nerve that had been draining out on him throughout the course of the evening. "Incoming hostiles, Stoppable?"

Other voices joined the inquisition, now that they had managed to assure themselves that no, I hadn't snapped and was about to come at them with a big stinking knife.

"Ron, what's happening? What's the sitch?" Kim said from the tree a couple yards off.

"Yeah, loser," Bonnie chimed in from the bunk bed on the now spaciously opened cabin sixteen. "What's with your whole freaking out thing?"

"What's with my whole freaking out thing?" I ask them, my voice high and fast. "You see the cairn?"

"Ummm, what's a cairn?" Tara asked, apparently giving proof that yes, the whole dumb blonde rumor might have some basis in truth.

"The big pile of rocks over there," I tell her gently. "Do you see it?"

"Umm, yeah," Bonnie said, somehow managing to make every inch of her display the complete and utter scorn she held for all things living that weren't her. "What about it?"

"What's it doing?" I ask her in return.

She scoffed. "It's a big pile of rocks. It just sits there. That's what it's…."

Kim cut her off. The moment I had pointed it out, she had noticed it. "It's moving."

"Yes," I tell her. I finally manage to get Mr. B free. He gasps and moves to cup his neck, checking on whether or not his exposure to the muck had managed to properly set in on him. "It's moving. And can anyone here tell me what it means when a pile of stones starts shifting ominously?" I give Barkin the knife, and push him towards the nearest suspended cheerleader. I turn and move towards Kim. Reaching into one of the bottom pockets of my cargos, I pull another knife. Unlike the first, this one is made out of bone. As I reach Kim, and begin freeing her, I meet her eyes. "When something like that happens, we like to call it 'ominous foreshadowing'." I cut desperately at the slime holding her, keeping one eye on the pile of stones.

The movement began slowly at first. A shift here. A shift there. It began to build, till the whole structure was shaking. I cut faster, as fast as I can without risking Kim. Barkin had picked up on my haste, and had moved onto the first of the bound cheerleaders, Marcella. It was when I was halfway through freeing Kim, that the rustling of the stones stopped.

I turned and stared hard at it, ignoring Kim for a sec. "That," I whisper, "can't be good."

The cairn exploded. I shielded Kim from the spray of rocks desperately, feeling a few good sized ones pelt against me. The shrieks of the girls, and the manly high pitched yelp from Mr. Barkin assure me that everyone else is alright.

Trying my best not to hyperventilate, I turn to look at what now stands where once there were rocks.

Its form was indistinct, abnormally dark in the night. The only thing that could be made out of it was its silhouette that looked vaguely humanoid, and its eyes, which gleamed and caught the miniscule light like an animals. It shifted slightly, its limbs twitching, and pops echoed through the air as though joints were cracking. Then it shifted again, and this time its twitching was more unnatural. Parts on it moved that can't move on a human. Dead silence met it as everyone but me could only stare at this strange thing. The air around it seemed heavy and oppressive, like humidity without the accompanying wet feeling that water in the air gives it.

Maybe, I think to myself, if we stay very still, it won't notice us and go away.

Then its eyes shifted. Not its head, just it's eyes. They moved across the shadowy face as though they were moving through water, changing position on its head till both of the shiny orbs were focused on the group of innocent young people directly in front of it.

Shit. Only one thing to do now.

Even as I start sprinting towards it, the silhouette's shape shifted again. This time its head split, melting like wax under the sun and reforming into a monstrously sized set of jaws, lined with jagged brilliant white teeth that shone out against the darkness of its flesh. The noise that echoed from the gaping chasm it had formed was the most wrong sick thing I've ever heard. It sounded like a bear, and a wolf, and a thousand cicadas, and whole murder of crows venting noise at the same time. It was like a physical assault on the ears. I was halfway to my destination. The jaws closed, and its form shifted again. It hunched over, expanding in some places and contracting in others. Its eyes lost their haunting shine, and now looked dull in the light of the night. I was three quarters of the way to my target. It looked like a wolf, or a bear, if either of those two natural species had giant spreading bat wings behind it. What they were seeing finally penetrated the minds of the shocked onlookers, and the air was pierced by Tara as she let loose a terrified shriek. I was almost at my target. The things eyes locked on me.

It moved. There must have been thirty yards between it and me, and five between me and my target. I blinked. Four between me and my destination, and twenty five between me and it. It moved so fast that it looked like a shadow pooling across the ground. Trees and brush were no impediment to it. It was so quick, and unnaturally jointed that it seemed to flow like liquid through them. One yard from my target, five yards from me. I jump, and pray that I had made it in time.

I hit Gill hard, grabbing him as I used my momentum to roll him on top of me. Then I placed both feet on the unconscious boys back and kicked him up into the air into the creature's path. Let it go for it…

It did. Great scything talons appeared, once more bone white, and pierced Gills body from all sides. It adjusted its destination, still moving at speeds so fast it was hard to keep track of it. With one more echoing shriek, it disappeared into the blackness of the forest.

I stood up, slowly, brushing myself off. I think I had rolled over some stones with that desperate maneuver. I could feel aches and pains forming that would no doubt be spectacular tomorrow. If I last long enough, I might even enjoy them. They'd mean I was alive. With one last look into the darkness, I say the last thing I have to say to the idiot bully with delusions of grandeur who had just awaken one of the most wretched and evil creatures in creation, and then been taken by it.

"Happy goat fucking, Gill." I spit in his direction, and then turn to hurry back to the task of freeing Kim.

Tara was sobbing. Mr. Barkin had frozen, staring at the last place the thing had been visible.

"Ron!" Kim was shouting. "We'll be fine here, you gotta go and help Gill! As soon as I'm out I'll come help." Kim had obviously entered that naïve zone where she wants to help everyone, even the bad guys. I can almost feel for her. It's not like Gill was trying to take over the world or anything. He was just a sad scared little boy that had lost his friends and family due to a freak accident. I cut her off.

"Fuck Gill, KP. The only thing he's good for is giving us an hour, two tops, to get everyone down and get the fuck out of here." This stunned the redhead, and I went back to cutting her free.

"Stoppable, did you just deliberately sacrifice that unconscious POW to the enemy in order to buy time for maneuvers?" Mr. Barkin was trying to wrap his mind around what he had just saw, and using military terms seemed to give him something to latch onto.

I shrugged, and said in a blasé voice that caused everyone else to stare at me gape jawed. "Better him than me, or any of you."

Bonnie spoke up. "Good point. Now that we have that out of the way, does someone want to tell me just what the hell that was?" She had started out calm, but halfway through she started gathering speed and volume till she was shrieking out the last of it while in the grips of obvious hysteria.

I give them their answer, not they'll understand it. They have no idea just how very screwed we are right now. "It was a yee naaldlooshi. A Skinwalker."


	2. Chapter 2

"Ummm," Tara said hesitantly, "what was that?"

"Bad." I tell her. Kim is by now mostly out. I grasp her freed hand, and plant a foot on the tree next to her. She gives me a nod, and I brace myself and pull as hard as I can. With a wet ripping noise, she pulls free.

Well, most of her does. A good portion of her shirt doesn't. She lets loose a little shriek and tries to cover herself, but it's too late. I've already turned away and darted off towards Tara. It's not like she has anything I haven't already gotten good peeks at. Besides, she's still wearing a bra. I've seen her in swimsuits that cover more. I have more important things to worry about. Things like, ya know, getting the hell out of here while I still have all my important major organs inside my body.

I start cutting away at the confused looking blond. Nearby, Mr. B has almost finished freeing his first captive audience. Good that makes two out of the eight girls free. We're making good time so far. But we need to speed it up if we're going to get enough of a lead for it to matter.

"KP," I snap over my shoulder. Kim seems to be waffling between being upset over me not being embarrassed by her being a quarter naked and upset over my very abrupt tone. "We have better things to do then worry about your bra. Get over here and help me!" The abruptness of my tone seems to call her back to herself. Standing up, she somehow manages to arrange her torn shirt to provide her with enough modesty for her to function with.

"Right," she says, and turns to start working her way to freeing a nearby girl.

"KP, over here. One at a time," I tell her, turning back to my task at hand.

"You keep working on Tara, and I'll help Marcella," she tells me, brushing me off. Well, she seems to have recovered enough to start trying to take charge. Any other day of the week, fine. I'd throw up my hands and leave it be.

"No. Two of us together means Tara's out twice as fast. Then three of us working together means Marcella is out three times at fast. KP, get the hell over here and help me!" I order her. If I was looking at her, I imagine she'd being showing a shocked impression that would be rather amusing. I can laugh later.

"Geez, loser, if you're done getting above yourself, would you mind terribly explaining just what the hell is going on here?" Bonnie demands. Apparently my rather short answer earlier hadn't been enough to satisfy her intense craving for knowledge. I don't know how her teachers manage to put up with her insatiable yearning for knowledge. I ignore her completely, and then turn over my shoulder to glare at Kim.

"Kim, now!" I tell her, and apparently my tone is enough to shake her out of her sudden paradigm shift. A shift to a strange and terrifying world with strange black things drag super villains into the night and the loveable stupid sidekick grows a spine. Welcome to the twilight world my friends. Welcome to my world.

As Kim slowly moves to help me, Tara looks down and gives me a worried stare. No, scratch that. Worried was last week. The look Tara is throwing at me is all wild whites of her eyes and quivering attempts to not break down into tears. I give her the best smile I can, deliberately forcing my own wild eyes down. She speaks. "Ron, what was that? What did it do to that other boy? What's going on here!" Kim has finally reached me, and her own glance tells me she was wondering the same thing.

Nearby Mr. B finally speaks up. "Stoppable. I think all of us can't help but wonder the same thing. Since you seem to have the necessary recon, why don't you stand up and give us a POI?" Mr. B had managed to free his first girl, the long blond haired Liz, and both of them were standing there, looking at me. They looked scared too. But no matter how scared they were, what they were doing was currently inexcusable.

"First of all, why are the two of you just standing there? Get over to the next girl and get her down!" I order incredulous over their inaction. My snap seemed to catch the two of them by surprise, and they hesitantly started to move to the next girl, Jessica, another blond this time with short hair. "Second of all, I have no freaking clue what the hell a POI is," I admit. Tara is mostly free by now, due to a combination of me hacking and Kim grabbing chunks of sludge and ripping them free. If that stuff is as mutagenic as Gill seemed to think, than I think all of us are going to need a good long sit in a doctor's office afterwards. If afterwards happens. Right now long term plans seem to be ranging in the two to three hour zone.

"Period of Instruction, Stoppable. Instruction as in you telling us just what the Sam Hill is going on here!" Even when confused, frightened, and cowed by an unexpected show of force you can always trust Mr. B to turn it all around and show that Marine fortitude.

"Screw all that!" Bonnie shrieked, still pinned near the ceiling of the decimated lodge. Apparently not being the center of the world has wreaked havoc with her usual stunning sense of decorum and propriety. Indeed all the favored graces of an elegant lady of the court that she usually favored us mere mortals with had disappeared. "What the hell is going on? What the hell was that thing? What the hell are you waiting for? Get me the hell down from here!"

"I told you. That was a yee naaldlooshi. And we're waiting to get to you. You're all the way over there, and we're all the way over here, and the rest of the team is between us and you," I tell her.

"A what?" Tara asked, staring down at me with wide scared eyes.

"A skinwalker," I answer her. "An ancient Navajo monster that uses black magic to take the form of animals and uses it for evil." Dead silence answers my explanation. I don't really expect anything else. Seriously, nowadays the moment you drop the 'M' word every so called sane person in the world goes to shit. The 'M' word being either 'monster' or 'magic'.

"Navajo monster?" Bonnie said her every word dripping with scorn. "That uses black magic?"

"Pretty much," I tell her. With one last cut, Tara is free. Well, at least someone here is being productive. Me. Everyone else seems to have decided that staring at me is a far more interesting task than anything else they could possibly do with their time. "Well, are you all just going to stand there or are you going to get to work?" I'd already turned to the next girl, Marcella.

"Stoppable, do you honestly expect us to believe in demons and magic and all that mumbo jumbo?" Mr. B asked, his every word dripping with scorn and derision.

"Yea," Bonnie chimed in, always willing to join in on one of her favorite hobbies: bashing her social lesser in order to promote her own well being. "I always knew you were a loser, but I didn't have you pegged as crazy too."

"Fine," I tell them, not sparing them a moment's notice. "Then it was another twisted mutant from the lake, like Gill. It has an obvious taste for blood, so why don't you all hurry the hell up and get to work?" At least Marcella seemed to be appreciating my efforts. After all, she was still pinned to a cabin wall, and I was currently the only one making any effort to free those still trapped.

"Puh-lease," Bonnie drawled. "It wasn't anything like that friend of yours. That green guy was even more pathetic then you! That thing was way scarier," she drawled out the 'way' for a few moments, indulging in the juvenile tendency to indulge in the 'hip' jargon.

"Fine," I ground out, still the only one working on freeing anyone. Is this really worth the effort, I asked myself. "Then we're all hallucinating because of the toxic fumes the lake is releasing! No matter how you look at it, the first thing we should be doing is getting everyone free, and the second is getting the hell out of here! Is it really that hard to figure out, people?" I shout at them, stopping my efforts and turning to glare at the gathered crowd.

And what a crowd it was. Mr. B was looking at me like I was a delusional psychopath, a notion no doubt enforced by the fact that I carried at least two knives on me at all times, from what they'd seen. Bonnie and the rest of the cheerleaders were giving me glances that plainly told me that they'd always known I was a freak and a weirdo, and my latest actions were only proving it. The only two viewers who weren't instantly condemning me were Kim and Tara. Kim was looking at me with an air of hesitant rebuke. It was a glance that told me that while she thought I was trying to be helpful, no I really wasn't and that I should sit down and shut up while someone more competent took charge. There was little doubt in my mind just who the more competent one was in her eyes.

Tara though…

Tara looked at me with hesitant trust. I could see it in her eyes. She wanted to believe me, she wanted to trust in my words. She wanted to give me control. I don't blame her. So far, no matter what the preconceived notions of me were, I was batting 1.000 here. I knew not to mess with the stones. I knew how to get the thing away without anyone important being hurt. I had the tools to get everyone free, and the answers to the questions they asked, no matter how much no one wanted to believe my answers. The only mark against me in her book was the admittedly vast reputation I carried behind me. That and the social pressure of her peers to discount me as a non-entity.

"Ron," Kim said, speaking slowly and with great care, as though to a child. "Why don't you sit down and relax? We all know how much you don't like this place, and how hard it is for you to be here. Just sit down and take a few minutes to get yourself back together."

I can't help myself. Oh, how beautiful. I throw back my head and laugh. I laugh long and hard, and by the time I'm finished I'm wiping my eyes to clear them and everyone else is looking nervous wondering if this was me finally cracking. Finally, I speak.

"I have a better idea. Why don't you all just shut up and listen?" I ask them. The smile I have on my face is hard and brittle. Bonnie can't help but jump in, still suspended, but apparently the discomfort of being helpless was alleviated to her by the chance to attack those she considered less worthy.

"Um, why don't you just shut up and go away, you little freak? I mean, now that you've snapped and all, I think all of us would be happier with you being somewhere else," she drawled.

"Wow. So if I snapped, that means I'm completely insane, and wouldn't hesitate to stab you in the face for being an insurmountable bitch?" I ask her, completely serious. That at least succeeded in shutting her up. It also made everyone else even more nervous, but what the hell. I can already tell in their eyes I'd been written off. My usefulness was expended the moment I drove off the skinwalker and freed enough of them to free the rest. I continued. "Now, why don't the rest of you do all of us a quick favor and shut up and listen."

I stopped talking. As the silence grew, I could see most of those present get even more restless. Tara was the one who finally broke the stalemate.

"Um, if you want us to listen, then why don't you say anything?"

"Because I never said listen to me. I said listen. It's coming from the lake," I tell her, speaking slowly and trying not to be short with the pleasant albeit dim girl.

Marcella, who'd been pinned next to me and giving me very nervous glances was the first to catch on. "Wait! What's that?" Now that someone else had pointed it out, everyone else stopped spending all their time wondering about how to get the knife in my hand out of it, and started spending it actually doing what I told them. Heads rubbernecked as they finally caught on to what I was alluding too.

"Is that…" KP trailed off listening hard. "Is that screaming?" her voice grew horrified as finally everyone else realized just what that elusive background noise was, that had been plucking at their hearing.

"It's Gill. It's been going on since right around the time I started cutting Tara free," I tell them. "If you listen closely enough, you can just make out him shouting, 'squeeb!' It's actually kind of funny," I snort, and everyone else here gives me a look that tells them they don't find someone else screaming funny. "I warned him not to do it, I tried to get him away from the cairn, and even now, going through that he still blames me."

"I don't really think that's funny," Tara whispered. Her eyes had regained that white rimmed fear look to them, rolling like a spooked horse.

"I do." My face is completely flat as I say it. "It's not my fault he mutated. We had an agreement. He swam, I made lanyards. Despite that, he blamed me for his fate. Afterwards, I tried to keep him away from the yee naaldlooshi's resting place. He wouldn't take no for an answer, and he woke it up. And when it got him, he blames me again." I leaned backwards, placing my back on the tree. Marcella's propped up form beside me was warm, hovering just above me to the left as a counterpoint. "And you want to know what else is funny? All of you. You see something horrible, something straight out of the pits of hell, and the only thing you can do is resort to your pathetic little definitions of existence. Someone tries to give you help, to explain things, and the only thing you can do is throw stones at him. News flash. This is fucked up. Let me explain the situation to you clearly. You're a hundred miles from nowhere, with no way to reach the outside, thanks to the screaming wannabe villain on the other side of the lake. You have no idea what's going on, or what to do. Most of you are still helpless. No one's expecting any word from any of you till at least dawn, which will be way too late. And the only person here who even has a clue what is going on, who even has a chance of helping all of you make it to the day, well, that's me. And none of you are making it particularly pleasant or easy."

I can see my words making an impression on them. A lot of the surety and confidence they had was being drained straight out. A counterpoint to my words, drifting in the wind, is Gill's pathetic screaming. Haunting cries of "This is your fault, squeeb!" mixed with the inarticulate screams of the victim of horrible tortures roll through the shaded night covered woods. I could see on their faces that the true magnitude of the situation was finally beginning to kick in.

"Earlier," I finally say, after having given them all enough time to settle their thoughts, "Mr. B, you told me to lead the way. Well I'm leading. Are you following?"

Mr. B narrowed his eyes. "Enough, Stoppable. That was to find a pay phone. And it was before you took a long walk of the short plank of sanity. You're relieved of duty. Surrender your firearms and retire from your post." Military lingo. Ah, Mr. B, I almost might miss you when this is all said and done. Ignoring him, I turned to Kim.

"Et tu, KP?"I said softly. Her green eyes darted to the side. There it was. Doubt. Heh, stop lying to yourself, Ronnie boy. It was always there.

"Ron, I mean, it's not like I don't think you believe if, it's just…" she trailed off trying to find a diplomatic way of saying.

"It's just that you think I'm wrong," I finished for her. She flushed red at that, not able to meet my glance.

All right then.

"Here," I tell her, and with a light toss, I send the bone knife in my hand sailing slowly through the air to her. She caught it almost without thinking, fumbling it gently but not hurting herself. Without another glance I turn and walk to the center of the cabin. I pried of the floor board to my secret stash of food, and started grabbing choice items out of it.

"Oy, what are you doing, loser?" Bonnie called down from me from her position pinned almost directly above me.

"Grabbing what I need," I tell her.

"Like you need that to get me down from here?" she screeched. "Just hurry up and get this stuff off me."

"Fuck you Bonnie," I tell her almost gently. With the last of my supplies gathered, and a dull incomprehensive stare from the dumbstruck prima donna, I turn and start walking into the night.

"Where are you going, Stoppable?" Mr. B demanded.

"That way," I tell him, pointing off into the dark woods, not slowing my strides. "And as quickly as possible."

"Wait, Ron," Kim cried out, grabbing my arm. Without a second though, I struck it away fiercely. I don't bother to look at her, or slow down. "Ron…"she whispered, hurt by my actions.

"Who do you think you are?" Bonnie cried out. "You don't get to talk to me that way! You don't get to say that to me! And you don't get to just walk away when I'm still stuck up here!"

"Why not?" I throw over my shoulder. "Let's be honest. I don't even like any of you. You're all stuck up self absorbed twits with delusions of adequacy. You think that modicums of popularity define your worth as being higher than mine, and that you're somehow better than me? Here's a second news flash too all of you. Mr. B, you're a petty tyrant who lords a personal grudge at me wielded through your position of authority. Go fuck yourself. The rest of you? You never liked me. You never made even the slightest effort to hide that fact. Well I never liked any of you either. You were all so concerned with your personal image that not one of you ever made an effort to get to know me, and most of you simply exploited me at your convenience in order to prop yourselves up on the food chain. Well, here's a tidbit for you. That thing over there," I jerk my head towards the screams still echoing from the lake. "That's a bit higher up on the food chain than the rest of you. And if I go that way," I gesture into the dark in the opposite direction, "then you're between me and it on that food chain that you so love. Guess this is one of those occasions where being lower is being better."

I stop at the edge of the clearing, still not looking back. I don't know what's going on behind me, but I had one last thing to say. "The only ones in this clearing I give a rat's ass about are Kimberly and Tara. Tara, you were always as cute as a button and as sweet as sugar to me. I'm gonna miss you. And Kimberly," and at this point I turn back and find her eyes with mine. When I do she sees something in them I don't think she was expecting.

Pure terror. Fear beyond any fear she has ever seen there before. She's seen me at some of my worst moments in life. We'd been in the shit too many times for her to not have seen some inkling of distress before.

"Kimberly," I repeat, speaking softly. Her own eyes widen as they gaze into mine. I don't think I've ever used her full name before now. "I've been there for you through thick and thin, and I've stood beside you in the face of certain death. But I can't stand here with you, not right now, not against that. We can't win against it. We can't kill it, we can't drive it off, and we sure as fuck can't subdue it and give it to the proper authorities. I'm sorry, but you're on your own, Kimberly Anne Possible."

And without another word, I turned away and walked into the shadows of the trees. I didn't look back. It does no good to dwell upon the dead.


	3. Chapter 3

On four legs. 3

It'd been three hours since I struck out on my own. It's funny, but I had almost thought that maybe some of them would follow me. That KP…no, that Kimberly would come running after me, willing to listen and ready to work as a team, or that Tara would come running after, blond hair trailing and wide blue eyes glistening, telling me in that innocent dim way of hers that she trusted me, and that she was willing to follow my lead.

But of course, that wasn't what happened at all. No surprise there. Peer pressure really is a terrible thing. It just got eight girls and one man killed. Or maybe it's the weight of preconception that crushed the life out of them. I don't really know, and I can't bring myself to really care.

It had been around ten when the bus tires had been flattened by that asshole Gill. We had wandered around for about another hour and a half, maybe a little more, before he finally made his move. After he had started picking us off he had taken a good forty to forty five minutes. It was only ten or twenty minutes after all hell had broken loose that I had been run out of camp. Add on my last three hours off unmolested movement, and I was beginning to feel something that I really hadn't thought would factor in to this nights agenda: hope. It was nearly four in the morning now, so the deadline was getting really close, and so far the poor doomed sacrifices back at camp were still amusing the skinwalker. In the three hours I'd had, I managed to clear three quarters of the distance I needed. If I could just reach my goal, I might be safe. That amounted to one more hour of travel at the speed I was going.

Not like I was going fast, either. The pace I'd been maintaining was at best a brisk walk. I couldn't really risk going any faster, not without hurting myself. The forest at night was a dangerous place to move to quickly in. And when I say forest, I mean forest. A real forest isn't anything like the parks most people have walked around in, just a few trees with carefully maintained lawn beneath them. Nor was it like the copses that people in more suburban areas might be familiar with. Those were like forest lite, all the forest, just one calorie. This was a real forest, true wilderness. And it was in the heart of Colorado. There were steep grade hills, and deep dark undergrowth. If I'd tried to move any faster than my current pace, my foot would find a bad rock, or a ravine or gully, or even some grasping underbrush. A catch like that would trip me up, maybe make me fall and hit my head, or maybe make me twist and ankle, or maybe just scratch me open and leave a trail of blood behind. Any of those would be enough to either slow me down, or leave a trail to be followed. It was bad enough that in order to make the time I had so far that I had to follow a small gully already. Something like that would give that thing back there an obvious trail to follow, and it would let it move faster the same way that it did me.

And it already moved a hell of a lot faster than me.

Still, if worse came to worse, I could always risk a good sprint. That'd let me cover ground a hell of a lot faster. And if it truly was a worst case scenario, then a sprained ankle or bumped noggin would be the least of my worries.

And so it was that I had almost began to feel somewhat optimistic, that the cold desperate terror giving me ulcers in my gut had almost begun to thaw, when it was all smashed to tiny little pieces and all hope was again torn from me.

Naturally, it was by Kimberly.

When I heard something crashing behind me, softly at first but getting louder at a fairly good pace, I began to panic before logic caught up to me. If the yee naaldlooshi was catching up, it'd be catching up in a much more subtle fashion. It'd stalk me till it was content and then strike without me ever knowing. Whatever it was running after me, it was too loud and too obvious.

Unless the fucker was being loud and obvious just to freak me out. Which was actually pretty damn possible.

Quickly I reached into my cargo to find the tool I needed in order to ascertain whether I should stay calm or running screaming for the hills. My fingers brush against Rufus as I search, and the poor quivering naked fellow actually bites me in fear. He'd been doing that. The presence of the skinwalker was strong enough to be felt even by humans. For animals, whom were more in tune with nature and thus more likely to notice the sheer fucking wrongness of the beast, it was enough to turn even my fine clever friend in to a quivering wreck. I ignored his sharp teeth. Rufus had his shots so there was nothing to worry about. I pulled out my tool, then fumbled in my other pocket for the other tool I needed.

With a quick snap I lit the cigarette in my mouth, and then took a harsh drag on it.

Ah. That was better.

Even as I enjoyed the sweet rush of smoke in my lungs, I began using the smoke for the other reason that I had pulled it.

Shit. That wasn't good.

Even as I watched the smoke ring I had just exhaled billow away into the night, I reached down and grasped a big rock out of the gully next to me. The crashing that had alerted me in the first place was getting closer. Considering the smoke ring I had just blown out, I doubt the crashing itself was the skinwalker, but even if it wasn't the skinwalker it still meant that I was about to have company.

Sure enough, come crashing out of the dark was none other than the poor saps I'd left behind a few hours ago.

Some of them anyway.

It looked like Kimberly had managed to make it out. Despite myself, and how we had parted, that made me happy for a moment. I clamped down on that happiness fast and hard. It had no place here. Kimberly had someone with an arm thrown over her shoulder, and was helping the girl there move. It took me a second to ascertain that the one Kimberly was supporting was none other than Bonnie.

Most of her anyway. It was hard to tell from the blood on her face, but I think that at some point claws had found her. It looked like she had an ear missing, and an eye as well. Actually, upon further study, most of her right side looked like it had come out second place in a fight with a meat grinder. Bonnie's uniform had been shredded in places, and was stained liberally with blood. It looked like she had taken more than a handful of wounds and that those wounds had been bound with the shredded remains of cheer uniforms past.

From my estimation, a good amount of that fabric seemed to have come from Kimberly. Her own skirt was resembling little more than a loincloth at this point. The fabric on the sides had been torn off for make shift blood stoppers, and it looked like Kimberly's top had met a similar fate for the most part. Her skin was liberally stained with blood as well, though it looked like far less of it was hers then someone else's.

Coming with the two fallen pep leaders, was Mr. Burkin as well. He looked like he had taken his fair share of damage too, and was moving with a limp so bad it looked like he had a club foot. Judging from the dark stains on the pant leg of the dragging limb, he might just have one now: a clubbed foot. He had cradled in his arms the lax and whimpering form of Tara. Tara at least looked like she was mostly in one piece. Physically anyway. She had her head buried in Burkin's chest, and it appeared as though she was unresponsive to the world, doing nothing more than whimpering and quivering.

Besides those four, there was just one other survivor: Liz, the tall, leggy, long haired blond. It looked like she had come out mostly unscathed herself, barring her uniform which no doubt adorned more than a few of the bloody spots on Bonnie's shattered person.

Great. Just fucking great. This wasn't good at all. For them, or for me.

With a great breath, I blew out another cloud of smoke, and I slouched against a tree, both of my hands buried in my pockets, clenched into fists to hold onto what I held there. I leaned against a tree; hidden from view, watching as they scrambled down the same gully I was traversing, moving way too fast to be safe. The only thing keeping them from sprinting was Mr. Burkin, whose limp was slowing him down, and whom the rest seemed unwilling to leave behind. Well, at least they were sticking together. If I had had that option, I'd have done the same thing.

For a second, I give serious thought to letting them scramble past, to staying still and hidden till they were out of sight, and to then either find a good hiding spot and dig in deep or just striking off in another direction through the darkened forest. As I stared at the cloud of smoke I had just exhaled, I knew that neither option really mattered. It was far too late for me to escape.

"Oi," I call to them, shifting so that I was standing in their line of site when they had closed the distance to a good dozen yards away. "It's me."

There reactions were, well, about what you'd expect given the circumstances. Kim whipped about so fast that Bonnie ended up getting tossed a foot or two aside from her momentum. In her hand was the bone knife, the moonlight glinting off it like ivory. Tara let loose a little shriek and buried her face tighter into Mr. Burkin's chest while the former marine cradled her even tighter and clenched his jaw for what he was no doubt expecting to be a reenactment of Iwo Jima. Liz fell to the bottom of the gully on her ass and started frantically spider walking away. As I stepped further out of the shadow of the forest and into the brief opening in the tree tops that the gully provided the moonlight managed to illuminate my form. Even with that much to confirm my identity they didn't loosen their stances. That could be either because they haven't forgiven me for not sticking around to go through whatever it was they had gone through, or because the skinwalker had gotten nasty at some point and already…

"If you're really Ron, prove it!" Kimberly challenged me, her green eyes fierce and every inch of her ready to unleash itself on my fragile frame.

I stopped at the edge of the gully. Better not to get any closer until I provided some kind of proof. "The first thing you said to me directly was in pre-K. It was, 'You're weird, but I like you.'" Kim's eyes narrowed at that. I could see her weighing that response in her head, trying to figure out if it was good enough to warrant trust in this situation. I turn to Mr. Barkin and continued. "One of the big reasons you've never like me is because on my first day as a freshman I saw you helping the science teacher clean up a spill, thought you were a janitor, and ordered you to clean up a juice box I spilled." Without waiting for further response I address Liz. "I've seen you making out with Joshua Mankey before, despite the fact that he and Kimberly have been making eyes at each other." I turn back to Kim, who had turned to direct that fierce glare that had previously directed at me onto Liz who was looking even paler than she had a minute ago and continued. "Is that good enough, or do I need to mention what happened two years ago on Halloween at ten thirty three pm?" This brought Kimberly's eyes right back to me, and this time they were accompanied by rosy cheeks.

One of the benefits of having been long time friends was the accumulation of some truly delicious blackmail material.

"No," she stuttered. "There's no need to bring that up."

"What happened on Halloween at ten thirty three pm two years ago?" a voice spoke up from behind the blushing redhead. Well, it looks like Bonnie was still conscious enough to sense a prime piece of gossip.

"Nothing!" Kimberly declared adamantly, and this time the glare she leveled on me was one that said, 'yes, you really are Ron, but if you speak one more word I'll kill you anyway.'

Good. Identity confirmed.

Now that the apparent mistrust was out of the way, the attitudes of the survivors of what used to be the Middleton Cheer squad drifted from wary to angry. This might have something to do with them blaming me for having left them to their fate.

"Well, Stoppable," Mr. Barkin rumbled, his voice even deeper than normal, lowered no doubt by anger. "It's nice to see that running away seemed to work for you." Awww. Is the big bad teacher angry?

"Shove it Barkin," I snap at him. His teeth make an audible grinding noise at my tone. Tough for him. He's the one that's going to be paying a dentist to fix it later. "There's only one way this is going to go down: I lead, you follow. I already tried to do this the nice way, and none of you were willing to listen. So now I'm doing it the not so nice way. You give me back the bone knife, you do what I say, when I say, and as fast as I say, or I pull another disappearing act." I meet his gaze evenly, despite the fact that if looks could kill I'd be on fire, stretched on a rack, and have my internal organs hanging from iron meat hooks. Well, at least it's nice to know I have an easy way out option. My eyes snap back to Kimberly. I meet her gaze evenly. She looked every bit as angry as Mr. Barkin. I can see it in her eyes, the accusation. Why did you leave us? Why weren't you there to back me up?

And she can see my answer in my eyes. Because you were wrong. Because this time, I wasn't the one who should have been backing the other up.

And into this tense scene, Bonnie once more breaks through. "Loser. Why are you smoking?" I have to give her credit. Bonnie was wounded. More than that, she was positively mauled. But despite that, despite the loss of her looks, and a good number of her facial features, despite that all her pride in her appearance had no doubt been lost, she was still maintaining that lovable Bon-Bon Attitude. It was almost enough to make me respect her.

"Because it makes me look cool," I tell her without breaking my gaze with Kimberly. "Now, decision time. Make it fast. The knife or not." I raised my hand to Kimberly, open handed and palm up.

And I could see it. I could see it in her stance, in her eyes. She wasn't going to do it. Even now, after what was no doubt a night of terror and bloodshed, even after all her pride in a protector had no doubt been crushed, after she had watched her classmates disappear one by one, or be maimed one by one, or just out right killed in front of her one by one, she still wouldn't yield.

I lowered my hand. "Very well then. Good luck." I turn and walk away, just like I did earlier. This would require a change of plans, but it wasn't impossible. It would mean me giving up my primary escape route, but I have others planned out. It would add a little time onto my schedule, and I have no doubt I'd make a prime target by myself. But I still have a few tricks up my sleeves and maybe, just maybe, I could still make it out of here alive. All it would take is a little….

"Give it to him," a voice whispers. I snap my head in the direction it came from, noticing that every other head present did the exact same thing. That little voice had come from Tara. From the shock on the faces of the others, they obviously hadn't been expecting it. Whether what they hadn't been expecting had been her desire to give into my demands, or the fact that she had no doubt been catatonic for a good while and thus they hadn't expected her to talk period was something I don't really know. Tara withdrew her head from the nest she had found in Mr. Barkin's shirt and glared at everyone in the clearing around her. Everyone but me.

"Give it to him," she whispered. "He knew. He knew what it was. He knew where it was. He knew it was coming. He knew, but we didn't listen. We didn't want to listen. And he was right. There was nothing we could do. Nothing we did mattered, nothing stopped it. He knew that would happen. He knows what's going on. So give him the knife." Her voice cracked with each word. I realized that it wasn't that she was whispering. It was that her voice had gone hoarse, no doubt from screams.

"No way!" Liz said, and in her voice, I heard it. Hatred. Ah, look at that. The poor little cheerleader finally feels something besides unfounded pride. Someone's learned how to have actual emotional depth. "He ran away! He just fucking fled like a coward! Why the hell should we trust someone who'd leave us to die? We're better off without him."

She looked like she was going to continue. Honestly, it looked like she'd been working on this rant in her head for a good long time, and that I was about to become the center of all that was evil, wrong, and wretched in her poor little life. She was interrupted before she could properly build a good head of steam though.

"He didn't leave us! We left him! We told him we didn't want him! We told him he was stupid and useless and he should shut up! So he shut up and left! And I wish I had left with him! But I didn't because all of you told me I shouldn't, and that it'd be fine! It wasn't fine!" Tara was shrieking now, at the top of her lungs. Her voice echoed through the forest, and Mr. Barkin desperately tried to shush her, to keep her from giving away our position. I think I heard him mumble something about noise pollution. I glanced at the smoke drifting away from my cigarette. I wasn't worried about the thing finding us.

I knew it was already here. It was just enjoying the scene. Savoring the fruits of its labor. Hell, I wouldn't doubt it if the fucking blighted thing had somehow managed to find a bowl of popcorn and was munching away on it even as it watched this little drama unfold in front of it. Yeah, that's right. Enjoy it. I've got a surprise for you asshole.

Tara had already worn herself out. That little outburst had probably been the last of her energy, the last little bit of defiance in her that hadn't been torn away or beaten down as the night had progressed. As the stillness settled back down on us, I turned back to them all the way. I held my hand up to them one more time, palm up and fingers spread, waiting.

"Last chance. The knife." Kimberly's eyes and mine met one last time, and then she looked away. Without another word, she tossed it to me. It was much harder than the toss that I had used to give it to her. Honestly, it was more like she just threw it at me with the intent for it to hit me. I grabbed it out of the air easily. For all the clumsiness I usually put into it, it doesn't change the fact that I'm a physically fit and well coordinated specimen that had survived almost as many deathtraps as she had.

"Well then, Loser. Now what?" Bonnie drawled out. I've no doubt that everyone there was expecting some kind of fumbling and mumbling, that they were waiting for me to show weakness so that they could ignore me.

Too bad for them, I don't show it.

"Alright, every one of you that's bleeding, I don't care from where or how, grab a chunk of dirt and start rubbing it in." I can see them being taken aback by my order, and cut them off before they even have a chance of talking back. "I don't give a rat's ass how unsanitary it is. They don't call it a skinwalker for nothing. It can take the shape of any animal it wants to, and there aren't many animals out there that can't track blood by smell." I paced down to where they were, passing by Kimberly without a second glance and standing next to Bonnie. Reaching down, I traced my finger on the rocks next to her, meeting the ruined girl's one eye with both of my own. I bring my finger up so she can see it, her own blood that she'd been dripping on the rocks next to her. "Right now every time one of you brushes up against something, you're leaving a trail. The dirt will cake on, and stop the bleeding. It'll have to be cleaned out thoroughly afterwards, but it won't matter if we don't make it through the night." Even as I'm speaking I'm digging into the soft walls of the gully, pulling out damp moist dirt. It was mostly mud already, which is fine for me. Without another word I begin smearing it over Bonnie, starting from her face and working my way down.

"You've been waiting for the opportunity to throw dirt at me for years, haven't you, Loser?" she asks me, but doesn't resist my ministrations. She closes her eyes as my dirt covered finger roughly rub against her wounds.

You know, I think my opinion of the queen bee just rose a bit. She was obviously in pain, obviously scared, and still, she kept her composure, such that it is.

"Ever since that time in the eighth grade where you pushed me into a mud puddle," I confirm to her, even as I quickly work to cover her. A rustling came from behind me, and I glance back to see that slowly, with much hesitation, the rest of the little group was doing as I ordered. Mr. Barkin had collapsed to the side of the gully, and was already beginning to work mud onto his bad leg. I think I can hear him murmuring something about confounding the senses of the sentries, but I don't pay much attention to this.

"Bet you're enjoying this, ain't you you pervert?" She moans in suppressed agony as I work the dirt into her tender flesh. "Gonna have all us pretty girls mud wrestling next?" Her one eye is closed in pain, and I realize what her sniping is. It's a way to keep her mind of the pain.

"Got it in one, you evil bitch," I tell her, my tone sardonic. "And after that comes the whip cream and strawberries."

She gives a half grunt half laugh. "Sounds like fun. I'll enjoy watching you and Mr. Barkin go at it." I can't stop myself from giving a grunt of laughter at that. I feel a presence at my side, and see Kimberly there. She'd already followed my orders for herself, and now looked like something out of a cult grindhouse film from the 70's. Her jaw was set, she looked angry, and she wasn't meeting my gaze, but she started covering Bonnie's legs while I worked on her arms.

I froze. Still hanging from my lips, the smoke from my cigarette stops just wafting and starts billowing. I unfreeze myself fast and keep on my task, but now my eyes never leave the glowing cherry in front of my face.

Soon. Very soon. Any second now…

I hear a crack. It comes from further up the gully, and it causes everyone, including me to tense up. As one our heads snap up in the direction of the noise. A shadow is stumbling down the path that nature had provided. In the light, I can make out a shadowy figure, clutching its hands over its face.

It's Marcella, the redhead whose escape I hadn't quite finished before I had cut ties and left. She was weeping, stumbling and knocking into the walls as she fled. I hear a gasp next to me, from Kimberly, and my eyes dart over to her. Kimberly's face was a mix of both hope and surprise. I can already imagine why.

No doubt Marcella had been one of the last ones taken. There might have been some confusion in her disappearance. Maybe she had just fallen behind during their desperate sprint that had allowed them to cover enough ground to have caught up with me and my very large lead.

It was convenient of her to show up now. Very convenient. The cigarette in my lips confirms what paranoia had already driven me to suspect.

I had better do this quick, before the others have a chance to react.

I get up and sprint to the girl. "Marcella! Get over her quick! What's wrong with your eyes?" I ask, sounding both concerned and desperate. I can hear a few muffled noises from behind me. The survivors covering themselves in dirt must have an idea of what's about to happen. It's probably already happened to them a few times. Someone they thought lost coming back to them, only it turns out that it's not them.

Even as the Marcella in front of me mumbles something about how she can't see, I pull my hand out of my pocket and lob a fist full of rock salt directly into her face.

Marcella shrieks.

It's not a human noise. It has human overtones, but beneath it are the same thousand cicadas and the murder of crows from before, from the thing that came from the cairn. Even as Marcella's arms flail back, waving as if in pain, even as I see the eyes she'd been covering, eyes that were bright amber and caught the light of the moon like an animals, my other hand is driving foreword.

The bone knife clasped in it finds Marcella's breast and digs in deep.

Marcella shrieks again, louder, even less human. Her shape wavers, darkens on the end. It's like watching gangrene spreading. The darkness starts at her fingertips, and traces like lightning down the veins of her exposed arms. The rest of the skin loses luster behind it, all tone dissolving into shadows as the phenomenon spreads from her extremities to her core.

And as fascinating as it is to watch, I don't have time to be entranced. Desperately, I stab at the thing in front of me again, but it moves. With a suddenness that belies its human frame, it throws its torso backwards. With a sickening crack it's arms pop from its joints, twisting so that its fingers can point away from me. With another pop, its legs do the same. A long echoing grinding noise comes from its neck as it twists so far that its head is upright, despite its position.

It's a hideous parody of a back bend, its torso is still right side up, bent in an arch into the air, but all its extremities have reversed so that it can move in this position like any beast that runs on four legs. No longer even attempting to maintain its mimicry of the human form, it scuttles off, the limbs bending at joints that it shouldn't have. Its scuttling motion is like that of a crab or some kind of insect or arachnid. But its speed is that of a cheetah, or a peregrine falcon. Its form blurs, not from any craft or body shaping, but from pure speed alone as it flashes away from me with a quickness I can barely comprehend. But even as it does so, something whips out. It comes from its pelvis, from beneath the feminine skirt that it still wore as a mockery of its former imitation of humanity. I throw myself backwards but it's too late. The fleshy appendage, a tail of some kind trails across my cheek like the caress of a whip. If it had been aiming for it, it could have taken my eye.

Instead, the appendage's main target was what was in my hand. It wrapped around the bone knife and wrenched it from my sturdy grip. I don't even bother to try and hold on. The force would have just broken my fingers. I let it go, and the weapon that had managed to hurt it trailed after the scurrying blurring form. It gained the edge of the gully, and found the tree next to it. It's scampered up it just as quick, circling it once till it found itself on a limb, some fifty feet above me.

Only once it was there, a safe distance away and holding my weapon, did it pause. Marcella's upside-down head, inverted and with its neck bulging and twisted and distended under the pressure that had rotated it, leered at me, and a long tongue, forked like a serpent, darted out to lick her eyes which still shined like a cat's in the moonlight.

And then it was gone.

I let out a soft sigh, and turned back to the rest of the survivors. Slowly, and without a trace of worry or doubt I made my way back to it. Head held high and confident, I matched the stares of those who had seen the whole thing. This was obviously not what they had expected to happen. Liz had pressed herself back into a niche in the rocks. She had obviously been attempting to find some kind of place to hide. She was gaping at me, and spreading around her was what looked to be a puddle formed of urine. Barkin was desperately attempting to shield Tara, whose gaze from beneath his broad arms was locked on me wide eyed. Kimberly, a few paces away from Bonnie was half sprawled on the ground, her own jaw open. She must have been attempting to run after me to try and save me only to be caught flat footed when I saved myself better then she could ever have dreamed of accomplishing. Bonnie was still flat on her back, but her one eye was open barely, still squinted in pain.

Naturally, the queen bee was the first one to break the silence. "Okay Loser. What the hell just happened?"

I answer her easily. "Rock salt. Salt is one of the most common items used for purification or exorcism. It's used almost universally in every culture as a way to drive off evil spirits. I always keep a handful on me, just in case something like this happens. After I hit her with it, she showed me her eyes. A skinwalker's eyes always gleam like an animal's while they're in human form, but look like a human's when they're in animal form. It's one of the only ways to identify them when they're wearing the skins they walk in. As for the knife, the bone knife is an athame. That's another item that can be used to harm spiritual creatures."

"Umm," Tara's voice leaked out, muffled by the broad arms of the protective marine. "What's an athame?"

I sighed and answered the girl. "It's a consecrated blade used by sorcerers in rituals. The magic it picks up makes it a weapon that can hurt both physical and spiritual entities. It's not very dangerous to them, but it can definitely hurt them."

The smoke coming from the almost burnt out cigarette on my lips wafts again…

"Still, we have to hurry," I start to pick up my pace to rejoin them, sounding worried. "I only keep a handful of salt on me, and that was my only athame." Please Mr. Fox. Don't throw me, Mr. Briar Rabbit, into the briar patch. "That should have driven it off, but we should get going just in case…."

There.

The smoke streams away from me again.

Mid-sentence, I turn and fling another handful of salt directly above me. It impacts with a dark shape less than a handful of feet above me, a great billowing cape of shadows and the dark wings of a dozen different flying species and the white claws of a dozen different hunting species. The salt burns it yet again, and it shrieks in surprise. From my pocket, I pull my other bone knife out, the one I'd been clutching before Kim gave me back my old one, and throw it. The blade cuts into the yee naaldlooshi just like it did earlier. The roar it lets loose is epic. It literally rattles the rocks next to me. It's joined by the shrieks of everyone there, including me. Holy Fuck, did I really just do this? Am I really that god damn reckless? I pray to all the gods I think I have a chance of listening to me, and to a few of the demons I might be on the good side of, that this desperate gambit works.

Shocked by the suddenness of the exact same thing happening to it, startled by the fact that the blond goofy looking boy in front of it is not the same kind of prey that it's been hunting all night, alarmed by the fact that it had actually been hurt, twice in less than a minute, after it had had hours of un-infringed upon playtime, the skinwalker that had been about to swoop down on me and drag me into the night instead turns and flees once more back into the shadows it had only emerged from a second ago. The great beat of its wings sends a buffet of wind down on us so fierce that it almost knocks me to the ground. Without another sound, even the sound of its wings flapping, it's gone.

And there, standing in the dark, bleeding from its whip like caress of only moments ago, I throw back my head and laugh out loud.

"Two times!" I crow triumphantly. "I can't believe you fell for it twice! I mean, yeah," I call out, my words echoing through the dark like a bell, "the first time I can see you falling for. You've only been dealing with these sad fucks the whole night. You had no idea that there was actually a shaman around. But you actually bought that line about me only having one athame? Seriously?" I laugh out loud again. The others are staring at me, no doubt trying to piece together just what the hell was happening. I can catch their expressions from the corner of my eye as I fearlessly gaze into the night with the confidence of a king. Hope. It was beginning to flicker there in their eyes. The sudden realization that yes, I really did know what the hell I was doing, and yes, I really did have a chance of getting them out alive.

I reach into my pocket and pull out another cigarette. Using the butt of the first one, I light the second, standing insolent and firm in the dark. Flicking the used one away from me, I take a deep drag and let out my breath easily. "No, I'm serious this time. I'm really out of salt and knives. Those were the only things I brought with me. No really. I mean it. I've got nothing else. I promise."

The noise that echoed out of the dark dwarfed even that of the cry it made the second time I stabbed it. The noise of cicadas and crows was joined by the sound of maggots crawling, and the scent of rot and decay. The noise echoed, drawing out for far longer than should be possible for the lungs of anything mortal. It came from all around, from every corner of the night from every shadow of every rock and every tree. It would be impossible to pinpoint just where the location of its originator was. Through it all, even as the other survivors clutched their ears and covered their noses, trying desperately to preserve their sanity while suppressing their nausea, I stood proud and firm, looking arrogantly in one direction, focusing on the source despite its widespread nature.

And then the noise cut off. And in the desperate silence that followed, the smoke from my cigarette wafted.

"Is, is it gone?" a soft sound emitted. Tara stared up at me, the first to recover her wits amongst those who were with me. Liz was still shaking, and now her wide eyes were staring at me with hope and awe. Barkin's own had the look about them. It was the look of an infantryman who had just crawled out of an artillery strike zone and was wondering if he was still alive, or if this was all just some crazy dream . Bonnie had managed to drag herself up onto her elbows, her one good eye left cracked open and staring at me.

And Kimberly…

Kimberly looked like she was about to cry. I can read it in her. Was that all it had taken? She'd watched her friends be picked off one by one, all her efforts failing, and in the end could it all have been averted if she had just believed in me, just stood up for me, just trusted me? Had she betrayed her oldest friend just to damn the rest?

An arrogant smirk on my face I pull the lit cigarette away from my mouth and looked at the smoke. It drifted straight up, dispersing evenly through the air.

Good. All the arrogance all the confidence I'd been displaying disappeared in an instance.

"Pack your wounds fast. We don't have much time," I tell them, speaking tightly, my face locked in a grimace. Without giving them time to question I continued. "This is an herbal cigarette. Herbal cigarettes contain sage. Sage, like salt, is one of the original purifying elements."

"So you're cigarette didn't just make you look cool, it also scared off that thing?" Bonnie's voice cracked over the silence.

"Fuck no. That thing is pure fucking ancient evil. The evil and the sage didn't get along, so the sage was driven away," I tell them, my voice cracking. I start moving, my pace quick and purposeful. The moment I'm back by Bonnie's side I'm packing mud on her fast. No more time for gentle. She groans, and strangles off a scream but I ignore it. The only thing that matters now is getting hers and the rest of our wounds covered. "You weren't paying attention to it, and neither was it, but the closer that thing got the faster and further the smoke was forced away. Look at it now. It's dead still here, no wind at all, so it goes wherever."

"But earlier," Kimberly said, her eyes narrowed, "earlier it was drifting all over the place."

"Exactly. It was how I knew that it wasn't Marcella, and that it was about to attack from above," I confirmed. Kimberly seemed to shake herself out of her daze, and joined me with Bonnie. She was mostly finished by now. From my peripheral vision I could make out Barkin and Liz following my example. Liz's eyes were downcast, and she refused to look at the ground where she soiled herself.

"So what was all that then?" Bonnie gritted out. "You looked pretty fucking sure of yourself back there."

"That was the point," I answered back quickly. "You ever watch the discovery channel? I saw an episode about how in Africa, the natives said the only thing to do if you found yourself face to face with a lion was to charge it head on. Or maybe you've heard about how if you're swimming with the sharks the only way to stop one from charging you is to hit it square in the nose when it's about to bite? It's the same principle." Bonnie was finished at last. I turned and made my way quickly over to check on Barkin and Tara's progress. I caught Kimberly's eyes first, and waved her towards Liz. Finally, without protest, Kimberly obeyed me, moving wordlessly to check on the ashamed girl. "The point is, is that thing is a predator. It's used to being at the top of the food chain, to having things run from it. When something that should be prey comes at it head on and manages to wound it twice? It scares it. All its instincts go haywire, and its first response is to get the hell out of the unfamiliar situation."

Barkin and Tara are staring at me as I explain this. The blond and the marine both have expressions of understanding, as my actions finally begin to make since to them. Barkin's understanding is laced with approval as he finally realizes my desperate feint. I've no doubt in his mind he's imagining the one machine gun post that holds off an entire assault, or the sniper who thwarts an entire battalion. And just like that, Barkin's eyes suddenly hold more than admiration. They hold a sudden understanding of just how precarious the position is. He'd been relaxing before hand, succumbing to the belief that we were all finally safe, that the nightmare was over and the monster thwarted. Now he suddenly resumed his actions to cover his wounds, moving with an intensity I could relate too. Tara's eyes had been shining with admiration, doe eyed and beautiful even as she covered herself with the strong arms of her protector. And I'm sure there's a story as to just how Barkin and Tara became so close. However, the story can wait. With Barkin's renewed intensity, an air of worry saturated the survivors who had begun to relax.

Barkin had realized what generally happens to that lone machine gunner and that solitary sniper.

"Ron," Kimberly says, her voiced edged with worry. "What's going to happen next?"

I tell her straight. "I scared it off. But it's not any dumb beast like a shark or a lion. It's a predator, but it's every bit as sentient or smart as any of us. Probably more so. It's gonna realize what I did. We have a half hour, tops. Then it's gonna come back, and it's gonna be pissed."


	4. Chapter 4

On Four Legs 4.

"Stoppable," Mr. Barkin grunted out behind me as I led the motley pack of maimed school girls and educators behind me down the dark and treacherous gully. "What's the ETA to the evac zone?"

From my place at the front, with one of Bonnie's arms thrown around my shoulder and the other around Kim's as we both worked together with the kind of unconscious familiarity that can only come from hours of cooperation under dangerous conditions, I answered without looking back using the same terminology that the tyrannous teacher was fond of. "ETA is one hour at the current pace. If advancement becomes blocked, then we'll assume fortified positions and attempt to hold out till hostilities end."

"And how long would that take," he ground out. I spared him a glance, and took in just why he sounded so coarse. He was crashing. It's not surprise. It's probably been nearly thirty six hours since the last time he slept, and probably nearly twelve since the last time he ate. Add that together with the fact that he was sporting a pretty nasty leg injury, was maintaining a decent hiking pace while carrying the still quiet and shivering Tara, and that the enforced calm of the last twenty minutes was allowing the adrenaline in his system to fade out, and it was either a divinely granted miracle or a testament to his Marine fortitude that he's managed to last this long.

"The enemy will be forced to halt hostilities in approximately 90 mikes," I tell him. His head lifts quickly at my assurance, and though he doesn't ask me why something as unstoppable as what he's seen would have to stop trying to kill us, the certainty of my proclamation gives him the will to put a little more spring in his step.

"Um, yeah," Bonnie drawled beside me. "For all of us who don't speak geek, you mind explaining just what the hell you two are talking about?"

"It roughly translates that we're about an hour away from a safe place," I tell her, "and if we can't make it there, we only have to hold out for another hour and a half and then this whole freaking thing is over."

"What?" Liz gasped, her head snapping to look at me. She wasn't the only one. Kimberly shot me a sudden hopeful look as well, and even Tara, who had retreated back into her "hide her head in the teacher's shirt and hope the bad thing won't notice her" mode managed to peek out at the welcome news.

"What do you mean, Ron?" Kimberly asked me, her voice taut. "When this all started, you were adamant about us doing what you said. Does that mean you have an actual plan for getting rid of that thing?"

"Getting rid of it?" I snorted, the very idea almost enough to give rise to the hysterical laughter that lingered deep in my chest. "I told you before. We can't get rid of it. That thing is so fucking far out of our league that if you were to draw a line between its league and our's the line would cover half the freaking known universe."

"Then what did you mean by safe place?" Liz nearly sobbed out. She was obviously just as close to crashing as Barkin was. Out of those of us still left, only me and Kimberly still had any ready reserves. We'd both been in tight situations before, and we had a lot of endurance from having to out run madman and foil world domination plots before. "Where could we possibly be safe from something like that?"

"The river," I tell them. "This gully was cut from runoff from the mountain from whenever it rains or snow melts. In about three miles it empties out onto some river whose name I can't remember. It's a small one, only about thirty feet across, but it has what we need to be able to shake the skinwalker off of us."

"The river? Shake him off of us?" Tara piped in softly, too confused to actually formulate a question, but getting her point across by just repeating what the important parts of what I said.

"Running water," I explain to them. "Water is another one of those original purifying elements. Running water is the bane of just about every monster or creature there is. They can't enter running water easily, and they have trouble crossing it unless there's a bridge or a vessel nearby. Even if it did cross the water, which this fucker probably could, it'd be weakened pretty badly. Badly enough that instead of just pissing it off, we might actually be able to kill it with what I have."

"So what," Bonnie wheezed, sounding skeptical. "We cross a stream and then when it comes at us we use your magic cigarettes and stab it and it'll die?" That perked the rest of the group right up.

"Yeah, right," I scoff, puncturing that hope before it can properly inflate. "I told you, this thing is fucking smart. It's probably smarter than any one of us. It'll know what the water will do to it, so it'll probably just give up the chase then. It might follow after, just to keep an eye on us and hope for a last strike, but if there's even a chance that we could get the drop on us, it'll just call it a night and let us escape. It already has enough prey to last it for a good long while."

"So all we got to do is cross a river and we're safe?" Kimberly asked. I could see her mind working hard. This was something she could use, some info that she could work with. She'd been flying blind the whole night, probably just taking shots in the dark as to what the hell was going on, not knowing if anything she was going to try would actually work. Now that she had working info I could see her shoulders setting as she started to amp herself up to be able to do something.

"That's plan A," I tell her. "The problem is, it knows it too. Which means the closer we get to the river, the more likely it is that it's gonna go out of its way to keep us away from the river or to just plain out finish us off."

That shut them up hard. "Plan A sucks," Bonnie told me flat out. "What's plan B?"

"Dawn," I tell her. "Yee Naldlooshi use dark magic to take the skins. Dark magic has short shelf life. A new dawn always wipes it out. That means that thing is strictly nocturnal. We manage to hold off till dawn, and it goes to ground to keep anyone from finding it and killing it while it's weak."

"But won't it try to finish us off before that just like it would with the river?" Liz said, her voice tremulous.

"Yup," I tell her flatly. "It'll probably come at us fast and hard, drag us kicking and screaming into the dark, and then torture us in horrible ways till we curse god for denying us the release of death or madness." Tara shook in Barkin's arms, and buried her face back in her cubby hole.

"Plan B sucks too," Bonnie told me. "Couldn't you at least lie about our chances? You're a boy, boys lie to girls all the time. You know, tell us it'll be all right and that we're all going to get out of here fine now?" She spoke to me like I was a small child, and was too stupid to know that maybe I should at least try to hide the fact that we were all probably screwed.

"Nope. That's plan C," I tell them, surprising them.

"Plan C?" Liz gawked at me. "Plan C is scaring the shit out of us? How the hell does that work?"

"Because that thing likes fear. It doesn't need to eat food or drink water like the rest of us. It didn't drag everyone else away so that it could kill them and eat them. It dragged them away so it could torture them slowly, savoring every shriek, reveling in their agony and delighting in their fear. It's probably out there right now, watching us, stalking us, drinking in our terror like fine wine and getting off on it while it does so," I tell them bluntly. A shudder runs through the group as I mechanically explain to them what had happened to everyone who wasn't here, and what will probably happen to us.

"So what the hell is plan C exactly then?" Liz asked shakily, her voice high with barely repressed horror.

"Get all of us so scared that it gets satisfied with the meal and decides to let us go so that we can spend the rest of our miserable lives in fear praying that it never comes around to finish us off," I explain to them. I pause and then continue. "I'm actually hoping for this one to work myself. It probably doesn't realize just how far the medical community has advanced. I'm thinking after a few years of heavy therapy and medication I'll be able to convince myself that this was all just a horrible nightmare and be able to one day function as a semi-productive citizen."

"That sounds like bull shit to me," Bonnie said flatly. "Why the hell would it just let us go when it has the chance to carve us up if it gets off on that so much?"

"Have you ever heard of a skin walker before?" I ask her. "No? You wanna know why? There are all kinds of legends about vampires, and werewolves, and demons, and monsters, and all other kinds of things. Why not legends about skin walkers? The reason is, because everyone who has ever survived an encounter has spent the rest of their lives too terrified to do anything but whisper its name. The survivors have always been so traumatized that even when they do manage to tell someone what happened to them, the other person won't ever speak about them again either. In order to find out as much as I have about them, I had to spend nearly a month earning a shaman's trust before he'd even begin to tell me about them, and even then he wouldn't do it near a window, or at night, or in a tone above a whisper."

This was getting to them, I could tell. Hearing me put it out there so bluntly was obviously impressing on them just how bad the situation was. They had thought they'd begun to understand. They'd seen it on their own over the last few hours. But they hadn't realized just why it was hunting them, just what it was planning to do. And now that they know the fate of those lost, and what awaited us if the skin walker got us, well, now they were really freaking out.

"Do you think it'll work?" Tara whispered. Not only was her face buried, but her whole body was trembling. Barkin awkwardly tried to rub her back to calm her down, shifting the arms that held her uncomfortably. Barkin's face had gone stone cold. Rocks had more emotive ability then him at the moment. Liz had her arms desperately wrapped around her torso, her own body quivering in the cold night, her features pale. Kimberly had her fist clamped so tight I was wondering if we'd have to put more mud on her from where her fingernails were biting into her palm. I could hear her teeth grind from where her jaw was clamped shut hard. Only Bonnie seemed unaffected.

"It has so far," I tell them, and the four of them turned their eyes to me, confused by what I meant. "Think about it. Why didn't it come after me first? I went off alone, by myself, no one around to help me. Yeah, I could have protected myself, but it obviously didn't know that at the time. The only thing it knew was that I was scared, a lot more scared than the rest of you. So why didn't it go after the lone easy target first? Instead it stayed behind, picking off the more confident ones one by one until finally the group broke. Do you all really think you caught up to me by coincidence? It drove you towards me. It probably thought that if I was that scared already, then what would happen when the rest of you caught up, in conditions like yours? It probably thought that it would ratchet up my own terror, and that would help fire up yours, and then it'd be able to come in all at once for the finishing coup de grace." My eyes narrowed and a grimace split my face as I described the scenario.

"But when it showed up you managed to hurt it," Kimberly argued. "Wouldn't that mean that it knows you're not scared of it? Wouldn't it just want to attack us that much harder?" Her argument made sense in a way, but I shoot it down.

"First of all, it actually makes it more likely that it'll let us go. It'll know that I'm aware enough of it to know just what it is. It knows that if it lets it go, we'll all spend the rest of our lives whispering the legend of the Yee Naldlooshi, that we'd all spend the rest of our days in delicious fear of it. And second of all, not scared? Are you fucking kidding me? I've known exactly what that thing is from the start. I've known just what it'll do to us, just how it came into being, just how screwed we've all been since the moment that rock fell off the cairn," I tell her flatly.

"Funny," Bonnie said, looking me from the corner of her one good eye. "You don't look that scared."

"That's simply because I've reached a plateau of terror so vast an inescapable that I've found myself completely unable to express it in conventional means," I say without tone. "I'm still functioning only because I've already given up all hope of escaping the night, and the only reason I haven't killed myself already is because I've decided that I might as well give it a shot, and because I know I can bite my tongue off and bleed to death if it looks like it might actually get me. That's plan D by the way: suicide."

"Don't joke around like that," Kimberly snapped at me, looking angry that I would even suggest something so horrible.

"Do I look like I'm fucking joking, Kimberly Anne Possible," I snap right back. "You don't have the first fucking clue just what this fucker can do. There aren't words in the fucking English language to describe just how fucking good this fucking thing is at fucking over its prey." My voice had steadily raised over the sentence till I was very nearly shouting, the hysteria I'd been holding back for so long threatening to crack the fragile hold of my self-composure. At the last second I caught myself. Screwing my eyes shut, I counted to ten even as I stumbled over the rocks in the dark before I finally reached a point where I wasn't about to lose all control.

When I opened my eyes, I looked forward resolutely, ignoring the wide eyed looks of my companions.

"Ron," Kimberly whispered, her eyes shocked at my reaction. "Ron, are you okay?" she repeated. She reached out her free arm towards me, finally realizing just how fragile I am right now.

I bat the well intentioned limb away. "No." I tell her back flatly. "The only reason I haven't shit myself yet is because that would require untensing enough for my sphincter to loosen." The sage cigarette in my mouth suddenly wasn't enough. Reaching with my free arm into my pocket, I pull out another cigarette, this one not herbal. My hands noticeably shook as I used the sage to light the tobacco, and then I place the second smoke into my lips on the other side. No one commented on my action as I desperately drew the nicotine into my system, hoping that the drug will be enough to calm my fraying nerves.

"What is it?" Bonnie finally asked. "You keep saying skinwalker, and yee na-whatever. Just what the hell is it really?"

I stay silent for a moment, letting the nicotine calm me enough to be able to talk without breaking down again. Finally I spoke up.

"It's what happens when a shaman, usually Native American, renounces the traditional magics, what they called the Witchery Way, and perform a sacrifice great enough to give them supernatural power over their forms."

"Sacrifice," Liz spoke up. "Like virgins or something?"

"Depends. The stories you normally hear, about killing virgins and stuff is bull," I tell her. "A sacrifice isn't about going out and finding some stranger who hasn't had sex and killing them. That's just a murder. Sacrifice is about giving up something to get something. It's not like it's always a bad thing. I mean, people sacrifice themselves for others all the time. Like if someone pushes someone else out of the way of a runaway car and gets hit themselves, that's technically a sacrifice, get it?" I explain.

"No greater love hath man," Barkin grumbles softly. I glance back at him, and find him studying me intently. No, not me…

I pull the tobacco cigarette out of my mouth and hold it back for him. Looking guilty, he shifts Tara in his arms and plucks the smoke out of my hand, and then holds it up to his mouth to take a drag on it. The rest of the girls gawk at the sight of their straight lace teacher enjoying something so bad for him.

"Yeah, like that. But there are other forms of sacrifice. Like performing a taboo in order to get something."

"Huh?" Tara said meekly, glancing over at me, and squirming slightly away from the smoke Barkin blew out of his nose with a small almost sinfully pleased noise. He passed it back to me with a nod, obviously satisfied with his brief indulgence. I take another drag myself before continuing.

"Like lying," I explain to the blonde. "If you want a good job, but you don't think you can get it by being honest, you lie on your resume. You're not supposed to lie according to our culture, but if you do, you get a good job with lots of money or power."

"So what?" Bonnie asked, and I felt her shift against me. The arm that she had thrown around my shoulder so that I could help support her wounded frame shifted, and grabbed my cigarette right out of my mouth. Closing her arm around me and nearly choking me while she did so, she pulled it to her mouth and closed her cracked and dried lips over it herself. She didn't even bother trying to conceal the almost orgasmic noise she made when she inhaled the drugged smoke. Kimberly leaned away from the wounded girl, taking her turn to try and avoid the smoke. Bonnie released her breath and continued. "This thing chasing us lied so much that it got super powers?"

"No. It killed, defiled, and then devoured a blood relative," I tell her, taking back my smoke and putting it back in my mouth. "A parent, or a sibling, or a child. Probably more than one." Kimberly gasped.

"That…" she mouthed sounding horrified.

"Ummm," Tara spoke up, sounding like she really didn't want to know but couldn't stop herself from asking. "Defiled?"

"Defiled," I tell her flatly, and then elaborate, taking another desperate drag at my cigarette. "It probably involved skinning, dismemberment, and more likely than not the drilling of new holes in the body for sexual intercourse."

Next to us Liz, who had been getting more and more wide eyed as I explained, turned to the side and wretched. I don't blame her. Neither did the rest of the girls, judging by their similar reactions.

"Cheese and Crackers, man," Barkin growled. Barkin once more showed his inner fortitude by surpassing disgust at the description and skipping straight forward into righteous wrath.  
"Who the hell would do something like that?"

"A sick, sick fuck," I tell him. "That's what a normal skinwalker would do. What's after us is even worse."

"What do you mean," Kimberly whispered, looking like she really didn't want to know just why I used the qualifying term 'normal' for an atrocity like what had been torturing us all evening.

"A normal skin walker gets some twisted powers from something like that. The ability to take any animal form, the ability to curse a person with rotting sickness, the ability to invade a body through the eyes and take a person's skin and life, but they also have weakness. There are prayers that can stop them, charms that can protect a person. They can be injured at night, and then when it's daylight they leave their skins and become human again, and can be killed then. Since people are so scared of skinwalkers that they get hunted down pretty fast and killed before they become too powerful. This thing though…"

I trailed off, organizing my thoughts. "When white people first came to this continent, they started driving off the natives so they could start using the land for themselves right? Then a while later the government tried to make amends by giving land back. The government originally tried to give one of the tribes who lived in this area the whole area back as land? You know what they did? They told the government the land was cursed and they'd rather live amongst the white folk then come here. Do you have any idea what that means? That a people would rather live with the race that had stolen their land, killed their people, and destroyed their whole culture then come back to a place where this thing was?"

The heat of the sage on my lips cued me to pull out another one of my herbal cigarettes and light it. I still had eight left. There was no point in conserving them, because if one of them wasn't lit we'd have no way of knowing if the skinwalker was coming. I'd just have to pray that they lasted long enough for us to get to the river. Worse comes to worse, we can finally do the desperate sprint I'd been conserving my energy for the whole night when I was down to the last two. The tobacco cigarette was burning low as well, so I took one last drag and then held it up and glanced around to see if anyone wanted it. Liz stepped up and sheepishly took it. The rest were quiet as they thought about the story I was telling them.

I continued. "It means that this thing has been here for decades, probably even centuries. Think about it. It's been alive longer than all of us put together, probably twice over. It's had dozens of years to learn all its tricks, all its skills, to perfect it's hunting and what it does with its prey afterwards. That thing didn't take one shape, it took whatever shape it wanted, mixing them however it felt like. It's fast, even faster than a normal skin walker. The fact that it was trapped in the cairn meant that even though the tribe that used to be here had managed to trap it, they still couldn't kill it. The only thing they could do even when it was weakened was seal it away."

"We are so boned," Kimberly finally said. She had finally realized just what the sitch was, and came to the same conclusion I had.

As she spoke, something wet splattered against my nose. Going cross eyed, I managed to make out a dark liquid on my nose. I stopped in my tracks. I knew what I was going to see, I knew that I shouldn't, but I looked up anyway.

Stretched above us above the path was Marcella. The real Marcella. What was left of her.

Her eyes had been gouged out, and her cheeks had been peeled away, stretched back around her head and fastened somehow, displaying the severed edge of her tongue. She had no limbs left. The stumps that remained of them were no more than a few inches long each. Her clothes had been removed, though there was no sexual attraction evoked by their loss. Long strips of flesh had been removed from her rib cage, letting pale white bone of her rib glisten with dark blood in the small light thrown off by my lit cigarette. Her stomach cavity had been peeled open completely, and her intestines spread and woven like a spider web through the trees, supporting her weight.

But what truly made the sight wretched was the fact that despite her condition, she was still alive. She twitched and moved, suspended by her own entrails, sending droplets of her blood down on us.

So that's what the skinwalker had been up to. It had gone back and retrieved one of its victims, and then staked out the path ahead of us, knowing the route we were taking. It had probably moved in a wide enough arc to avoid notice by the sage smoke, which drifted only faintly in the still air, and left us this little gift in order to show us just what awaited us in order to fuck with us.

Vicious bastard.

I finally responded to Kimberly's statement in a flat tone, even as the others started to track my sight up wards to see what I'd already discovered. "Yes Kimberly. Yes we are."

Echoing out of the darkness was the chuckle of a thousand cicadas and a murder of crows.


	5. Chapter 5

On Four Legs 5

Predictably enough, Liz started screaming immediately. It was a perfectly justifiable action in my book, so I ignore it. The same way I ignore the way Kimberly lost all strength in her legs and collapsed to the ground, kneeling and staring upward helplessly as she finally succumb to despair. Barkin had glanced up before Tara, and then immediately grabbed the back of Tara's head and held it securely to his chest so that she wouldn't be able to follow the rest of our gazes. It was probably the best thing he could have done, seeing as Tara's sanity, as tattered as it already was, probably wouldn't have survived this final cruel blow.

"Alright," Bonnie said, her tone still dry, her expression unchanged. "I've decided that your running away and leaving all of us to die earlier has become an entirely understandable event and hereby forgive you almost completely for it."

"Almost?" I asked her, my voice just as detached as hers.

"Yeah. Complete forgiveness would only have been given if you had knocked me out and taken me with you in the first place."

Liz kept screaming in the background, her face going redder and redder, her pitch rising ever higher.

"Duly noted. So next time just go ahead and have my wicked way with you?" I ask, shifting the smoke in my mouth out of the way of a drop of blood that leaked down from what once was apparently a pancreas.

"Yes, please," she assured me. Then she glanced at Liz. "Shouldn't you do something about her? Won't she like give away our position or something?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure it already knows exactly where we are," I begin, then glance at the still shrieking blonde. "But it'd probably be bad for her throat if she kept at it."

Well, the quickest way to deal with hysteria like this is pretty well known. Without another word I back hand her across the face with my free arm hard. Her head snaps to the side, and the force of the blow knocks her to her knees. It apparently works. With her head shifted away and her loss of equilibrium she was no longer staring at the morbid sight above us, and with the remains of her one time comrade out of her sight she was finally able to shake loose of the hysteria that had gripped her. Desperately she pawed at the ground, regaining her hands and knees, and then began dry heaving, her stomach already empty of all its contents.

"We…We have to help her," Kimberly whispered. She did nothing more than stare upwards at the twitching torso, the sight burning into her eyes. Her voice was hopeless. She already knew that there was no helping the thing that had once been human above us. There was no medical treatment in the world that could repair that damage, no doctor or physician that could ever piece this modern day humpty dumpty back together. But still she tried to think of some way to do it, some way to keep her never say never attitude, some way to keep helping. Even though she knew that it was impossible.

"Yeah, we do," I answer, my voice distant, cold. In that plateau of terror that I had told them of earlier, even this wasn't enough to shake me out of the safe little zone my sanity had carved itself in order to protect itself from what it knew was coming. "Barkin. You still have my machete?"

"Yes," he told me, desperately holding Tara's head to his chest. She had apparently decided that if he was keeping her from looking up for a reason, then she would trust the teacher that had apparently become one of the staples of her reason and let him direct her actions appropriately.

"I'll need it for the triage," I tell him. I held my hand out to him, and he shifted, trying to juggle the bundle of shaking girl in his arms enough to be able to retrieve it, and when it proved impossible, simply turned around so that I could see it. He had bound it tightly with a piece of close sideways to two of his belt buckles where it would hang out of the way and still be accessible. I reached out and gave it a quick sharp pull. The blade was apparently still sharp enough and it cut through the pieces of cloth that were serving as an impromptu sheath easily.

I took a second to glance down at the tip in order to assure myself that it was still sharp, and then threw it up hard, so that it drove with a meaty 'thunk' into Marcella's ruined face, right between her vacant eye sockets.

The suspended girl let out a low groan as the neural pathways in her brain severed, the body stopped receiving input, and began to shut down. I'm pretty sure it was painless, but honestly, even if it had hurt it would probably have felt like a relief compared to what already must have been done to her.

I felt Barkin's eyes on me, and saw the way Kimberly's dropped to the ground. Bonnie kept looking upward for a few more seconds, and then she sighed and sagged against me.

"So," she said. "Got any more of those cigarettes?" Wordlessly I pulled another of the tobacco sticks from my pocket and lit it. I got barely a drag on it before she tugged it out of my lips and stuck it in hers.

"You bitch." Everyone in the clearing turned in surprise to Liz. Still on all fours, she turned her face up and was now glaring at Bonnie with all the hate in her eyes that not too long ago was directed at me. "You bitch. Here we are, getting picked off one by one, and all you can do is make sarcastic shots and ask for cigarettes! You vicious goddamn bitch!" She was growling now, her whole body shaking as everything that had been building in her slowly through the course of the wretched night finally reached a head. "And you!" Now all the hate in her was on me. "Leaving us to die wasn't enough, now you're going to kill us personally?"

"Liz," Kimberly said softly. But whatever she was going to say was cut off as the furious blond turned on her.

"And you! The great Kim Possible! Aren't you supposed to save people! And you!" now she had twirled on Barkin. "You're a teacher! You're supposed to protect us! What the hell are you all doing!"

Throughout it all, the only one of us accused whose expression changed was Kimberly's. She flinched as though she had been slapped. Bonnie, Barkin, and my expressions on the other hand stay untouched. I think all three of us had already recognized what had happened.

Liz continued, her voice a shriek again. "Well I'm done! I'm done! I'm not going to hang around here anymore! You all probably made this all up! That's it isn't it? You made it up so you all could get me! You're all trying to get me, so you can cut me up and kill me like you all did to the others! Well I'm not going to stand for it! You're not going to get me!" Her expression was twisted as she declared this, and her words were interlaced with hysterical laughter. Turning, still on all fours she began to scramble up the side of the gully. Kimberly's eyes widened as she realized what was happening and started to go after her, but Bonnie surprisingly enough beat me to the punch and grabbed the red heads arms, stopping her.

"She's snapped," the maimed girl said, mumbling around the coffin nail in her mouth.

"Totally," I agree.

"Inability to cope with combat stress," Barkin murmured. Tara just lay very still.

"So we're just going to let her go?" Kimberly said. Her words should have been combative, should have had fire in them, should have been laced with disbelief. Instead, they were just soft whispers, as even she had already accepted what was about to happen.

"Well, now you know how I felt earlier," I told her, still looking to where Tara had disappeared to. I felt I owed it to her to at least watch her go, considering what was about to happen.

"What do you mean?" Kimberly asked me, her voice defeated as she excepted Liz's departure. It seems this final scene of logic defying cruelty and fear inspired insanity had finally managed to completely smother the fire that usually ran through her veins. She wasn't thinking anymore of how to take charge, how to fight, how to make things right, how to lead, or anything like that. Now she was just accepting the events that surrounded her, watching with drudged acceptance as events spiraled further and further out of her control and the edges fell away around her.

"Because we're going to use her as bait," I tell her. Her eyes widen, and I continue on, explaining to the group in general while looking at her specifically.

"The Yee Naaldlooshi knows we're following this gully. It's keeping far enough back so that the smoke won't react and we can't tell where it is. But it also reasoned we'd eventually come right here, so it went back, grabbed a victim, and set up a surprise for us. Even if it can't attack us head on, it can still fuck with us." Left unsaid with the loss of Liz was just how effective the attack it launched on us was. "We've been keeping a slow pace most of the night, so that we won't trip over anything, and so that we won't get too tired to move. At our current pace and path it'd take us about forty five minutes to make it to the river. What we're going to do now is leave the gully and cut through the forest itself and head back towards the camp as fast as we can."

"So we're going to risk our necks running through the forest at night where we can probably break our necks in order to go as far away from the safest place as we can?" Bonnie said slowly, her drawl slow pace of speech the kind you'd use to talk to either a very small child or a very stupid adult. She blew a puff of smoke into my face, and in retribution I stole the cigarette for my own use. "Alright, Loser, I can't wait to hear the reason behind THIS act of insanity.

"There are three things the skinwalker can do right now. It can attack us directly, counting on us not being able to hurt it enough to stop it, or it can try to repeat what it did earlier, maybe using two or three of its prey this time and in order to try and get another success like it did this time, or it can go after Liz, whose out there alone. Two out of three of those involves it not paying close attention to us for a prolonged period of time, and in the case of the third we'd be screwed no matter what we do. So we take advantage of the fact that it's not going to know where we are, and we move as fast as we can in a direction that it's not expecting, and we might be able to delay it long enough for daybreak."

"A strategic feint towards an unsuspecting flank," Barkin declared, nodding decisively. He could see the logic in my plan of action, and didn't even flinch at the thought of using Liz as a potential smoke screen. Kimberly just nodded quietly, the will to argue lost to her by this point. Only Bonnie spoke up.

"Do you think it'll work?" she asked. By now she knows that I'm not going to sugar coat my answer, or try to hide anything in order to give false hope just because she was an injured chick. I lay it flat out for her.

"If it's going back for the victims to lay a surprise, there's a good chance it won't notice us gone till it's too late, and then all of us, even Liz, will probably live. It's already proven that just cause Liz is alone, that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll go after her. It has no problems letting some people live, as long as it's had a chance to fuck with their heads enough. But it also might decide that it'll have the time to go after her and then come back to finish us off without realizing that we've already high tailed it, or it might just decide that more survivors are fine and let us go while it targets the one who already snapped. Honestly, I have no idea if this'll work, but I think it has a better chance than us staying on the gully waiting for new surprises."

Bonnie gives a nod. "Well then, let's go break our own ankles."

We ran. Well, ran might be too strong a word for it. We stumbled forward with extreme prejudice might be a better way of putting it. Tumbling over brush and rocks we heaved our battered bodies past all the debris and undergrowth, each of us trying not to be the one who eventually found that lucky rock with our ankles. We only had to keep it going for an hour and fifteen odd minutes by my estimation.

Thirty minutes into it, Barkin collapsed. It didn't really surprise me. He'd been carrying Tara's dead weight for what was probably most of the night. Combined with the fact that he'd no doubt been running a lot more than I did in order to catch up with me, and the fact that his leg was pretty much an amputation waiting to happen, it didn't surprise me in the least. I released Bonnie over to Kimberly's sole care and headed back to aid Barkin. It took a little work, but eventually the big man managed to shift Tara to a one arm hold, his arm supporting her under her bottom while she put her arms around his neck and kept her head buried firmly in his shoulder while I threw his other arm around my shoulder and gave him what support I could. The whole process was made awkward by the fact that through it all we never stopped moving forward, and Tara never stopped hiding her face. If the two of them make it out of this alive through some act of either divine intervention or demonic generosity I can only wonder what the future will be like for those two.

With the extra weight on me, I could feel my own endurance being sapped. By now I was down to the last three herbals. My own panting breath no doubt drawing some of the smoke into my lungs and causing them to burn faster than it would have it we had kept up the more sedate pace, but there really wasn't much choice in the matter. Lighting them one after another, the new one from the butt of the old, I kept my eyes half on the path ahead of me, and half on the smoke rising in front of me. It was hard to tell, with the rough pace we were moving causing it to disperse unevenly, but from my best guess, we were still both free and clear or the beast was still holding its distance while it waited for a chance.

My money was on it waiting, but that's just my pessimism shining through.

By the end of the second half hour all of my small supply had run out. I swear, if I do get out of this, I'm never going anywhere without a carton of these freaking things stashed on various places of my body at all times. But despite that, there was good news.

The sky had begun to lighten.

We could only tell slowly at first: subconsciously realizing that we were tripping less, that our range of vision was getting wider and wider, small things like that. When we finally realized that what we were seeing wasn't just our eyes getting used to the dark, but the fact that the dark was actually lessening, it was like Christmas had come early. Or Hanukah had been extended by another week for me I suppose.

Bonnie managed to sum up what everyone was beginning to feel rather succinctly. "Holy shit. The Loser's plan actually worked," she dead panned. When she broke the soft panting and sounds of our physical exertion with that declaration it was like an invitation for all of us to finally start hoping.

Had it worked? Had my desperate plan actually managed to carry through? My thoughts raced. By now it was actually light enough to see the forest around us. The chirping of birds filled the lightening air as nature began to shed the soft night noises of insects for the brighter sounds of daylight.

I let out a shuddering breath, softly so that it wouldn't disturb the others. Around that vast plateau of fear I was standing in, in that eye of the storm of terror, I felt the fear that had hounded me the entire night begin to ease. For the first time in what felt like forever I began to hope…

Aww shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit damn fuck.

Well then. I guess there's only one thing left to do.

I slowed down and unwrapped Barkin's arm from my shoulder. He stumbled a little and drew the attention of Kimberly and Bonnie, who had gotten ahead of us by a few dozen feet due to their much less combined weight then me, Barkin, and Tara.

"Ron," Kimberly asked her voice tensing. I don't blame her. So far every time I've done something tonight seemed to have been a precursor to something horrible happening.

"You guys go on ahead," I tell her with a small smile, even as the rest of the group tensed in anticipation of what they no doubt expected to be me giving them more bad news. "I finally started to untense long enough for me to properly shit myself and I'd rather not do it in front of the rest of you. Might spoil my image as a badass," I tell them with a sheepish grin as I rub the back of my head in embarrassment.

Bonnie snorted at that. "Face it, Loser," she tells me, even as the unruined part of her face, the part not caked with blood and mud, stretched into a relieved smile of her own. "You and badass just don't go together in the same sentence. The two are mutually exclusive."

Barkin chipped in with his own two cents, his exhaustion tempered with pride. "Go on soldier. You're relieved of duty, honorably this time. You've earned a little privacy."

With an awkward chuckle I start to head off on my own to take care of business.

Naturally, just like the rest of the night, it was Kimberly that fucked it all up.

"Ron," she said clearly, her posture suddenly ram rod straight. "You're lying."

Damn that girl for being able to read me like she does. "What do you mean KP? Everything's fine. Well, except for the lack of toilet paper, but I'm pretty sure not even poison ivy is going to be able to make the day any worse." Please, just let it go. I don't want what's about to happen to happen here. Instead her eyes narrow.

"Now I know you're lying. You haven't called me KP since camp," her eyes are like slits, and behind them I see the fire in her start to re-awaken. The others are beginning to pick up on the tension between us, and starting to realize that it was more than just a long overdue fight between two teammates who were on the outs.

With a sigh, I give up the pretense. "Man, Kimberly, you really have had to fuck up everything I've tried to do tonight," I tell her, turning around to face them. As I spoke, I continued to back away from them slowly.

"Loser," Bonnie said, the smile on her face gone, "what's going on?"

"Do you know what false dawn is?" I ask them, ignoring her question, and not giving them time enough to answer before continuing. "It's the period right before actual dawn, when the light of the sun is refracting of the earth's atmosphere and lighting everything even though the sun isn't out yet. I told you earlier that black magic had a short life span? And that dawn would force the skinwalker to retreat? Well when I said dawn, I meant dawn, not just light." Their eyes widened as they heard me explain. "Well then, I thought to myself just a second ago, if I was a sadistic evil freak who was trying to cause as much terror and pain as possible, when would be the best time to do it? When the group I was hunting was running desperately, by picking them off one by one? Yeah, that would be pretty vicious. But what would be even more vicious is to wait till the very last moment, to hold off till the exact second that the poor fuckers would think they were safe, right at the moment when the really thought it was all over, and then come down and shatter that hope completely."

Their eyes had widened as I explained and the looks they gave me let me know they were following my thought process, and agreeing with it. I continued.

"So then I asked myself, who would be the best target? And in response I figured that the best target would be the one who had helped all the others, who had managed to come up with a workable plan to save the rest, the one who had managed to give the others a little bit of hope that just maybe they'd make it all out alive." Their eyes were wide, but they weren't looking at me. They were looking above me, behind me.

I let out a sigh and my head fell and my eyes closed. I didn't really need to ask, but I did anyway. "It's standing right behind me, isn't it?"

And the Yee Naaldlooshi spoke. Its voice, though human still had the sound of cicadas and crows, and the rustle of maggots, and the echo of dark things that hunted in the wretched night. "You are a clever one, little shaman." Its voice came from behind me, next to my ear. Now that I had identified it, predicted its actions, stolen the surprise of its attack, it revealed itself to all of us completely. I didn't turn to face it, but I could feel its presence, hear it shifting its unnatural joints behind me, the sound of its black heart pumping, the breeze of its fetid breath on my ear invading my nostrils. "It has been ages since I hunted one such as you. You were hardly pathetic at all."

"Well," I ask plaintively. "Was it good enough to warrant you letting me go?"

"No, little shaman," it whispered to me, it's voice almost intimate, if you look past the fact that the very sound of it was like venom on my ear and caused what was left of my fragile sanity to shriek in gibbering horror. "You have hurt me, little shaman. Not once, but twice." Claws circled around me. Great gleaming scythes of bone traced down my forehead, across my shoulder, along my hip, down my leg simultaneously. Where they touched they parted my skin and clothing effortlessly, razor sharp, raising thin beads of blood all along my body. "I will reward your efforts with my full attention. I will rework you into a masterpiece, a testament of my joy that this hunt has given me." Wow. I guess I really impressed the thing.

I looked up. Bonnie had let go of Kimberly, and had collapsed backwards onto her ass, staring at the scene in front of her with the first hints of emotion I'd seen on her face since she'd lost half of it. Barkin had collapsed to his knees, all his reserves gone. I could see in his face that he wanted to come, to drive the thing off of me, to get revenge for his lost students, to save at least one of them and to hurt the thing that had hurt his charges. But he couldn't, not with Tara still shaking against him, not with his leg finally collapsed and not responding to his brain's orders, and not when he simply had nothing left in him to give.

Kimberly still did. I could see it in her eyes. She'd already lost so much of her essential Kimminess this night, seen too many of her friends and charges dragged into the night. No matter how much baggage this night had given the two of us, no matter how much we'd both hurt each other tonight, she wasn't going to allow this. Not now, not her oldest and best friend, not right in front of her.

She knew she couldn't win. She knew she would fail. But she also knew that at least she'd be able to join me in what comes next.

And now matter how much I wanted to be saved, no matter how much I desperately didn't want to face what was about to happen, I couldn't let her come with me this time. I couldn't let both of us fall.

"Mother says you have no place here," I say, and the claws already caressing my flesh flinch and freeze. "Father says you are ugly."

The Yee Naaldlooshi screamed. The noise of it shook leaves off of the tree limbs around us; it made gravel shake, and the underbrush around where the two of us stood, me and the monster, died under the sheer weight of the hate of its scream.

It had taken me much time to learn that prayer, and even then, the shaman wouldn't tell me the rest. I was not of the people, I was not a proper apprentice. I was just one of the white men who had taken his people's land and left them broken and desolate. But I was one who knew of the creatures that hunt men, and I did hunt them back. And I had come across the beast the prayer was meant against, so he had at least told me that much of the ancient charm. And with those two sentences, I had managed to cause more pain to the abomination behind me then it had probably felt in centuries. Earlier, with my athame, I had irritated it. Now, I had actually hurt it.

And that would make the thing enraged. Before, it had been playing, now it would be punishing.

And from my pockets I withdrew my last two athame, and turned, screaming, and drove them both into the black thing behind me's chest.

And as I screamed, I finally felt something other than fear.

I was fucking pissed.

This thing had hunted us, hurt us, warped us, maimed us, and now it was going to dismiss the others so they could spend the rest of their lives in fear and pain while delivering that fear and pain to me personally. I knew, enraged as it was now, it wouldn't stop at me. After hearing that prayer, it was going to come at the rest of them and slaughter them for having seen it weakened. So there was only one option left: attack. I had to hurt it, hurt it so badly that it would be forced to flee. I had to show the others that even in the face of despair action was still possible. I had to give them some hope.

Even if there was none left for me, they had to be able to have some. Even if this was my last stand, they'd still have more before them. And so….

And so, screaming, I stabbed it. I stabbed it again and again and again. More than that, I had pressed into a charge, my own thin weight enough to shove the startled thing backwards, causing it to stumble and I cut it over and over again.

I couldn't let the others get involved. If I was going to go, then fuck all you better believe I'm going to go down clawing, biting, scratching, stabbing, kicking, punching, that everything I can do to hurt the thing would be thrown at its face in defiance.

That was what this was. My final act of defiance. Not just to hurt the beast, not just to defend myself, to avenge myself. This was for KP. This was for maimed Bonnie. This was for broken Barkin and Tara. This was for mad Liz and dead Marcella. This was for all the rest of the lost cheer squad, and for every other soul this thing had ever marred. I was going to show them that there was still hope left, that even death can accomplish something.

And so as I stabbed, as I cut, as I tried to hurt it, it finally recovered, and every bit as blood mad as I was, it returned.

Ivory claws violated my flesh, digging deep into me, cutting me to my core.

Fuck it. I was dead anyway.

I press in closer, willingly forcing the crimson dyed white deeper into me just so I could continue my relentless assault. I cut every piece of flesh in front of me, I pushed my blades as deeply as I could into it, as often as I could, twisting them and raking them side to side.

It screamed again, this time in pain as well as hate.

My thoughts began to become muddled as all my being focused on hurting the thing in front of me. Time disappeared. The world around me disappeared. I cut, and was cut. I stabbed and was stabbed. The noises around me became extraneous, unimportant. The forest around me became blurred and uninteresting. All that mattered were the claws in me, and the blades in it.

And suddenly, it was over.

The thing in front of me was gone. What was it again? I remember vaguely that it was something bad. Well, that's good. If it was bad, and it's gone, that's good.

What's this? There's something in my hands? They're so heavy… Too heavy for me to hold. I let them slip away. Really, it's just too much effort to force my fingers to hold them.

I stumbled a bit, and turned around. There was something behind me I had to look at. People? The people look okay, so that's good too. I don't think I wanted those people to not be okay. They were making noises. They sounded worried. I tried to smile for them, but coughed. Something red came out. So I tried to smile again, and this time it worked. That made me feel happy!

Behind them I can see something through the trees. Well isn't that amazing? It's the sun!

That's funny. The people in front of me are saying things, doing things, but it's the sun that's making me wonder.

Isn't the sun supposed to be bright and warm?

Then why is it getting so dark? And why am I so cold….

_The end. Because sometimes, that's just the way it goes._


End file.
